Lucian

"Would you like me to wrap one of these for you, my lord?" a voice said, and Lucian realized he had absently stood before a stall selling women's jewelry. He was lost staring at one particular choker made out of black velvet, decorated with a dark red stone and dangling black chains. It would look heavenly around Daria's neck.

"Yes, I will take this one please," he smiled weakly, trying not to imagine Daria wearing only this choker and nothing else, where the dangling black chains would brush and tease the top of her naked breasts...

"Is it a gift for your lover?" the woman asked with a sideway grin. Lucian blushed, wondering if he should tell anyone he had a lover. The woman smiled knowingly when Lucian did not answer, as if reading his mind. "Is she beautiful?" she insisted and Lucian couldn't help but smile.

"Her face is as fair as the white of snow, and her hair is as red as a ruby stone," he said dreamily as he watched the woman wrap his gift for Daria.

"You must love her so much. Would you like anything else my lord?"

Lucian only shook his head as he took the gift box and handed a whole gold coin to the jewelry seller. He was just about to leave, when something suddenly tugged at his coat. Lucian flinched and Sunrise cawed, hopping off his shoulder. Lucian turned and found a little boy looking up at him with round eyes. 

"I'm hungry," the boy said. Lucian knelt down and smiled at him.

"Here," he said as he took out a gold coin and handed it to the boy. "Go buy something to eat."

"What is this?" the boy asked with a frown of disappointment as he examined the coin. "Will this buy me bread?" 

"This is a gold! It will buy you bread and much more," Lucian chuckled and the boy's mouth fell open with surprise. Apparently the child had never seen a gold coin before. He quickly closed his little hand tight around the gold coin and went running away.

As Lucian rose back to his feet, he realized that many people had watched him and now started approaching him. He knew he shouldn't be giving gold like that in public. But he did not really care. Even if Bernard found out, what was the worst he could do? Beat him again? But perhaps Lucian didn't care because he was certain that Bernard was too far away and too busy with battle to find out that he gave a gold coin to a hungry child in public.

"Sir Lucian!" someone called out. "How generous of you!"

"Young Lord, you are truly an angel," someone else said.

"Sir Lucian! My child is sick. Can you give us some gold too?" a woman said as she approached him.

Lucian didn't care anymore. He took out all the remaining pieces of gold from his pockets. In a  moment, a large crowd of humans had closed upon him and all the gold was gone in an instant as eager hands snatched it away. More humans surrounded him, pushing through each other and grabbing onto him, but he did not carry anymore gold now. He couldn't help but feel a little unsettled.

"Give us gold too!" a woman grasped his arm.

"That is not fair!" a man protested. "Giving gold to some people while leaving out the others."

"I'm sorry," Lucian said timidly. "I promise I will carry more gold for everyone the next time."

"And how long until the next time?"

"I hope my little ones wouldn't starve to death until that next time!" a woman sobbed.

Lucian's heart twisted, and a wave of guilt washed over him. He could not bear the responsibility of causing the death of this woman's children, only because he didn't carry enough gold today.

"Lucie, there you are," a man's voice called and the crowd was instantly silenced. Lucian turned, and a small line opened through the crowd as the middle aged man approached him. It was Liam the blacksmith. 

"Sir Liam the blacksmith!" Lucian gasped and Liam chuckled, apparently amused with Lucian's use of the word 'Sir' for addressing a human blacksmith. 

"Come Lucie, why don't you join me for a drink?" Liam said as he familiarly put his arm around Lucian's shoulder, urging him to walk along. 

Sunrise cawed while Lucian eagerly walked with Liam, grateful that he saved him from the unsettling crowd. Liam indeed had some sort of influence among the humans, for no one dared to speak the moment he appeared. 

The district where Liam took him was the most desolate and brooding place Lucian had ever seen. They walked through a narrow empty street with no market stalls or shouting merchants or running children, only deserted cracked grey buildings standing at both sides of the dirt street, and the deadly sound of silence. Lucian wondered if they actually walked in a graveyard.

"Where are we going?" he dared ask Liam in a small voice, and he jumped up in surprise at the sudden flapping of wings where Sunrise flew before them towards a corner building, cawing loudly. Lucian flinched at the bellowing echo. If this was indeed a graveyard, the dead would have woken up at Sunrise's cry. Lucian's heart raced as he heard approaching footsteps.

"Sir Liam?" Lucian could barely whisper. 

Before Liam could respond, a gloomy looking old man appeared before them, walking slowly out of an alley next to the building where Sunrise stood. Lucian held his breath as the man walked towards them, but he only passed by peacefully without even looking at them. Lucian wondered if that was actually a real man, and not a ghost. 

"We are almost there," Liam smiled as he held open a washed out and cracked wooden door, that led to what appeared to be an ancient deserted tavern. 

Yet the inside of the place seemed even more menacing. Lucian looked warily around him as he followed Liam down the stairs to the cellar of the old tattered tavern. The stairway was dark and narrow, and Lucian could barely breathe through the damp musty air. Winged ones and dark narrow spaces never agreed. Lucian's heart pounded heavily and he felt he was about to suffocate. Sunrise's continuous cawing and flapping wings were not making it any easier.

"Where are you taking me Sir Liam?" Lucian asked timidly, as he clutched at the cold stone walls confining their path.

"You will find out now Lucie," Liam said.

When they finally stopped at the bottom of the stairs, Lucian was relieved to find the space opening into a relatively wide room, yet it did nothing to ease his nervousness as he found two shady looking men seated before a large table, staring back at him as suspiciously as he did.

"Please have a seat Lucie!" Liam said as he pulled out a chair for Lucian. "Excuse the crudity of the place and the sullenness of my friends, but please make yourself at home."

Lucian smiled weakly as he sat before the scrutinizing men.

"You should be grateful I managed to get to you before those humans devoured you!" Liam said as he offered Lucian a large cup of some unknown drink. Lucian wrinkled his nose slightly at the strong smell.

"If you want to be generous you have to be discreet about it. We all know Lord Bernard very well. Now what if anyone with a sick heart informed Lord Bernard that you have been giving gold to the humans in the city?"

Lucian shuddered. Liam was right. But Bernard was not here...

"I do understand Lord Bernard is hundreds of miles away," Liam continued as if he read Lucian's mind. "But you still have to be careful. Besides you don't know who is really poor and who is an imposter, right? It would be a waste if you give out gold to the wrong people."

Lucian had never thought about that. He thought that anyone asking for gold had to be poor.

"I can help you." Liam smiled, his green eyes shining gently. "I know everyone in the city. I know who needs help and who doesn't. I know who is sick and who isn't. If you give the gold directly to me, I will be able to discreetly deliver it to those who truly deserve help, and spare you the trouble of having to come to the city and risk wasting your gold on undeserving imposters, moreover being seen by someone who might not favor you and who would go tell Bernard. What do you think Lucie?"

"So...so you want me to give you the gold, instead of giving it to the poor people? And then, you will give this gold to the poor people?" Lucian asked in a shaky voice.

"That's right! It will be better for both you and the poor people," Liam smiled in assurance. "What do you say?"

"Umm... Well, that sounds alright, I guess," Lucian said hesitantly before he stole a glance up at the two other silent men, and he was instantly reassured as he found them smiling at him in approval.

"Oh Lucie, you do know the right thing to do! I have always known you're so smart."

"Thank you!" Lucian smiled shyly. "Oh, before I forget, I want you to make sure you give gold to that woman, the one who said her children were starving..."

Liam chuckled. "See? That woman is the biggest imposter I have ever seen. Well, let me tell you, her children are definitely not starving. In fact she doesn't even have any children at all."

Lucian looked back at Liam with wide eyes, wondering in horror if he had already given out gold to any of those imposters.

"Alright Sir Liam," Lucian said at once as he realized that indeed Liam was far more fit to handle that task, "I shall meet you here again tomorrow, with a hundred pieces of gold."

He caught Liam's eyes widening for a moment before one of the two other men cleared his throat, drawing his attention.

"You are so generous indeed, young Lord," the man with dirty blonde hair said, his grey eyes sparkling as he smiled at Lucian. "But there are many people in this city."

"Sam!" Liam muttered under his breath, but the man named Sam ignored him.

"A hundred pieces of gold will not be enough to help a good deal of those people," Sam continued. "I am sure you could find a way to add a few hundred more..."

Lucian was silent for a long moment, wondering if he could sneak out such an amount without anyone noticing a shortage in the treasury. Well, he didn't know when Bernard would come back. It might be several months. He would definitely find any excuse for how the gold was spent. It might work...

"Alright," Lucian finally said. "A few hundred more."

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